Reviews by RichD:

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Presentation: Label is very attractive and eye-catching with a metallic foil look and awesome graphics. Front label gives a small description of beer, ABV info, Enjoy Before Date(4/2014), a bit of brewery info, and states “Special Release”. Neck label has a nice small description and back story on the beer. Sam Adams is embossed in the glass bottle.

Appearance: I decanted this Cherry Chocolate Bock aggressively from its 12oz brown bottle into a 13oz pokal glass which led to a thick 3 finger mocha head atop a deep opaque brown beer that has slight ruby tones when held up to the light. Head retention was a excellent 4min 37sec before fading to a thick coating and ring with excellent lacing.

Smell/Aroma: CCB smells heavy of sweet maraschino cherries with hints of coco and a slight nuttiness. Has a slight soda aroma.

Flavor/Taste: CCB tastes heavy on sweet chocolate malts with a slight nuttiness on the front-end. A sweet maraschino cherry flavor along with more chocolate comes through on midpoint. Back-end is dominated by sweet chocolate with some light cherry sweetness and a toasty nutty flavor. Finish is very soda like with a sweet chocolate and cherry flavor. Very sweet.

MouthFeel/Drinkability: On the full side of medium bodied with a smooth creamy mouthfeel. CCB is only just slightly drinkable because of the overly sweet flavor.

Overall/Comments: CCB is a solid offering that I would classify as a dessert beer because of the extremely sweet nature of this beer. In my opinion if this beer have had more of a sour cherry flavor it would have been a very good offering however it is overly sweet for me as is. Consumed 12/17/2013. Classified as a Bock @ 5.8% ABV.

Poured one and a half bottles into a 1/2 liter stein a deep dark chocolate color with a reddish brown hue,a lighter tan colored head atop,downhill from there.Aromas of maraschino cherries dominate the nose,just artificial and overly sweet.Flavors are cloying and so artificial tasting that it's hard to come up with anything other than sweet as far as a profile goes.It tastes like cherry syrup with a little bit of chocolate.I think Boston Beer Company is a great, and Jim Koch is great, but this beer to me is a slap in the face to craft beer drinkers.

Overall: A good beer but not a great one. I find this to b the best of the new offerings in the winter pack and I hope they bring this back. That said it is like a mixture of their cherry wheat and chocolate bock, but does not work as well as either of those beers, which I adore. I think O'Fallon has a tastier version of a cherry chocolate bock, but this one is still fairly good.

Served in the Sam Adams glass this beer has a weak tan head that dissipates quickly. Brown with garnet highlights and clear. Aromas of cherry and chocolate for sure. A bit of a cola aroma. Taste is chocolate cherry cola-weird. Weak on grainy malts or hops this beer is high on carbonation and weak in body given the ABV. A fairly easy beer to drink-recommended for someone looking for a beery cherry cola. A sweet dessert beer.

Nearly black in color with nearly no head and very little stick to the glass. The beer looks somewhat thin.

The aroma is a bit strange; yes, there's chocolate, yes there's some cherry, and yes there's some roasted malt, but it doesn't quite come together as nicely as it sounds on paper. The cherry flavor seems somewhat artificial, perhaps like a (cough) syrup.

The flavor has similar failings: the cherry flavor doesn't come together particularly well and doesn't accentuate any of the positives present in this beer. The roast character is very mild, dominated by artificial chocolate and cherry flavors.

Thin to medium bodied with moderate to high carbonation.

I wasn't a fan of the Chocolate Bock or now this Chocolate Cherry Bock. Apparently, they just aren't for me. That being said, the ice cream Churchill's Pub & Grille made using this ice cream was fantastic.